Single brand strategy
Single brand, also known as unified brand, refers to the situation where all products produced by an enterprise use one brand at the same time.
This forms the strongest brand structure synergy between the company's different products, allowing brand assets to be fully enjoyed in the fullest sense.
The advantages of a single brand strategy are self-evident. Merchants can concentrate on shaping a brand image, so that a successful brand can be accompanied by several products, so that each product can fully enjoy the advantages of the brand.
For example, the well-known "Haier" is a representative of the single brand strategy.
Haier brand ranked first for four consecutive years in 2005 with a brand value of 70.2 billion yuan, 22.2 billion higher than the second place.
Haier ranked 89th among the world's top 500 brands in 2005.
Haier Group has been promoting its own brand strategy since 1984, developing from product brand to corporate brand to social brand. Now it has successfully established the well-known image of "Haier".
Haier products have grown from a single refrigerator in 1984 to a product group of more than 15,100 specifications in 96 categories including white appliances, black appliances, and beige appliances, and are exported to more than 100 countries and regions around the world. , all using a single "Haier" brand.
Not only that, Haier is also used as a corporate name and domain name, achieving the "trinity".
As consumers, we can extend Haier’s concept of “sincerity forever” to any product under its name.
A successful Haier brand has made Haier's tens of thousands of products become famous brand products, and the advantages of a single brand strategy are fully demonstrated.
Another advantage of a single brand is that the cost of brand promotion is low. The cost here not only refers to the cost of marketing and advertising expenses, but also includes the cost of brand management and consumer awareness. Clarity.
A single brand can better reflect the will of the company and easily form the core elements of market competition to avoid confusion among consumers. It also requires coordination among various brands.
Of course, as a single brand strategy, there are certain risks. It has the advantage of "one prosperity and another prosperity", but it also has the danger of "one loss and two losses".
If there is a problem with a certain product under a certain brand name, other products under that brand will inevitably be implicated, and the entire product system may face a major disaster.
As a single brand, it lacks differentiation and poor differentiation, and often cannot distinguish the unique characteristics of different products. This is not conducive to merchants developing different types of products, and it is not convenient for consumers to make targeted choices.
Therefore, "sub-brands" often appear within a single brand.
[Edit this paragraph] Sub-brand strategy
The specific method of adopting the sub-brand strategy is to use a successful brand as the main brand to cover the company's series of products, while also giving different products different titles. A charming name serves as a sub-brand to highlight the individual image of the product.
Let’s still take Haier as an example. Although Haier uses the same trademark on all its products, in order to distinguish each other’s characteristics, only refrigerators are divided into the “Pilot Series” of variable-frequency side-by-side doors. "; inverter refrigerators "Prince Charming Series" and "Color Crystal Series"; computer refrigerators "Digital Prince Series" and "Space Prince Series"; mechanical refrigerators "Super Energy Saving Series", "Golden Commander Series" and so on.
So for the refrigerator product alone, Haier has 15 sub-brands.
The use of sub-brands in the home appliance industry has become a common practice in the industry. This effectively divides the functions and characteristics of different products, making the characteristics of each group of goods stand out, and at the same time making up for the excessive use of a single brand. The shortcomings of simplicity and lack of vividness.
[Edit this paragraph]Multi-brand strategy
When a company operates two or more independent and unrelated brands at the same time, it is a multi-brand strategy.
As we all know, the function of a trademark is to distinguish different producers of goods or providers of services for the same kind of goods or services.
If a company uses multiple brands, of course it has the function of not only distinguishing other commodity producers, but also differentiating its own products.
The multi-brand strategy creates an independent growth space for each brand.
The advantages of multi-branding are obvious. It can divide products according to differences in functions or prices, which will help companies occupy more market shares and face consumers with more needs; It seems to be a competitive relationship, but in fact it is very likely to strengthen the overall competitive strength and increase the overall market share; to avoid the impact of product performance, such as extending the brand of sanitary products to food, consumers will psychologically It's hard to accept it.
Moreover, multiple brands can spread risks. If there is a problem with a certain product, it can avoid affecting other products.
Its disadvantages are: high publicity costs. Building a well-known brand requires the cooperation of financial resources, manpower and other aspects. If you want to successfully build multiple brands, you will naturally have to pay high investment as a price; many Self-competition among brands; brand management costs are too high and can easily cause confusion among consumers.
The representative of adopting multi-brand strategy is none other than "Procter & Gamble".
P&G's principle is: If there is still room for a certain type of market, it is best that those "other brands" are also P&G products.
Therefore, P&G's multi-brand strategy allows it to have a very high market share in various industries.
For example, in the U.S. market, P&G has 8 laundry detergent brands, 6 soap brands, 4 shampoo brands and 3 toothpaste brands. Each brand has a different description of its characteristics. .
Taking shampoo as an example, we are familiar with "Rejoice", which specializes in smoothness; "Pantene", which attracts the public with comprehensive nutrition; "Head and Shoulders" has good anti-dandruff effect; " "Vassoon" emphasizes luster.
Different consumers can choose freely on the shampoo shelf, but they have not left P&G products.
P&G's strategy is not only to use different trademarks on different types of goods, but also to use different trademarks on the same goods due to different functions.
Of course, she also paid high market costs and management costs for this.
However, we have to say that P&G is successful. With a glorious history of nearly 170 years and about 300 brands, we have to say that it has created a miracle in its brand strategy.
In the multi-brand strategy, some companies do not use functional division, but hierarchical division. That is to say, different brands are used for the same goods, but the quality and level are different.
For example, L'Oreal has chosen a distinction based on grade.
Lanc?me and Biotherm are its high-end products, while Yue Sai and Maybelline are its relatively low-end products.
Perhaps even women who are passionate about makeup may not necessarily know that the four brands mentioned above are all owned by L'Oreal. They each occupy their own market share and have different levels of consumer groups. .
Some people can’t help but ask why we all know that “Rejoice”, “Pantene” and “Head & Shoulders” are all products of P&G, but few people know the relationship between Lanc?me, Biotherm, Yue Sai and Maybelline? The reason is that P&G uses "endorsed brands."
[Edit this paragraph] Endorse the brand strategy
P&G will not forget to point out "Rejoice--P&G's high-quality product" when using its brand.
The endorsement brand is attached to the product and runs through the entire company brand and project brand. The management of the endorsement brand is implemented in each link of the value chain to ensure that the development project can become a distinctive feature of the company that distinguishes it from other brands. reflect.
Why does P&G use endorsed brands but L’Oréal does not.
In fact, after careful analysis, we can see that not all of P&G's brands use brand endorsement.
In the field of beauty and cosmetics, SK-II and Olay are also P&G products, but they do not use endorsed brands.
It is because P&G has become a representative of mass consumer goods in people's minds. It appears in large quantities in the fields of washing and hygiene products. If it is used in high-end cosmetics, it is likely to affect the sales of these products. worth.
For another example, "Pringles" potato chips are also a product of Procter & Gamble. It will not use the "P&G" endorsement trademark here because this will make consumers think of shampoo when buying potato chips. , washing powder and other well-known P&G products, and this is likely to affect its image among the public.
Same with L'Oreal.
L'Oréal Paris can only be considered a mid-range brand in the field of cosmetics. It is obviously inappropriate to endorse it on top of high-end products such as Lanc?me. Therefore, in this case, the merchants adopt the method of downplaying The overall brand strategy allows these high-end brands to establish their own image and create their own territory with a more superior and good image.
Through such a strategy, the overall competitive strength has been improved and different levels of consumer groups have been taken care of.
[Edit this paragraph] Things that enterprises should pay attention to when creating their own brands
1. Brand positioning.
"Good brand positioning is half the success of the brand."
Brand positioning is to allow consumers to clearly identify and remember the characteristics of the brand and the core value of the brand.
Product development, packaging design, advertising design and other aspects must be centered around brand positioning.
For example, the brand positioning of Safeguard is "bacteria removal". Over the years, Safeguard's advertisements have always been "bacteria removal". By deepening consumers' memories time and time again, it finally achieves the goal of choosing Safeguard if they want to "bacteria removal". .
2. strategic planning.
Enterprises should enhance their brand image through brand planning and strategic planning, increase consumers' awareness and loyalty of products, and establish a good brand image of the enterprise.
First of all, quality strategy is the key and core of implementing brand strategy. Quality is the life of products. Strict quality management is the primary condition for developing, maintaining and developing famous brands.
Secondly, market strategy is the foundation for implementing famous brand strategy. To implement market strategy, we must establish a market-oriented concept.
From product development to marketing, we must firmly adhere to the theme of market changes and meet customer needs to the greatest extent.
3. Promote it vigorously.
For small and medium-sized enterprises, it is important to let consumers recognize their brands in a short period of time through publicity. During the publicity process, it is necessary to highlight the brand's positioning and core values, and find out the relationship between products and consumers. The emotional intersection allows consumers to have a sense of awareness of the product in a very short period of time.
In short, in the process of choosing a brand strategy, an enterprise must fully consider its own advantages and characteristics and choose the one that is most suitable for the development of the enterprise. Only in this way can it embark on the road to successful brand management.